PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Release criminals and confine healthy citizens to house arrest. Cool.

[William Walker]

Or more accurately, the bias of the person looking at the data can slant their views to whatever suits their bias.

Yes..lies and more importantly preconceived notions affect how people view data.

Alan, I confess, I deliberately left out the context of the graph in an attempt to try and understand what you and Joe do with any information you receive from certain folks on this thread - including me.
Frankly, you both disappointed me.

Surely the correct answer would have been, "William, sorry, I can't help you, I am going to need more context in order to properly understand this thing". Instead, you both go into "shoot this down mode" instinctively.

Nothing anyone here says will persuade you allow yourself look at this matter objectively. Everything has to fit into your (Trump) narrative, and look, I understand your predicament: Once you make one concession as to any missteps your government has taken, you get kicked out of the tribe. Not just "kicked out", but vilified and mocked, ask Michael Cohen, John Bolton, Jeff Sessions and the rest.

Please give Mrs Klein my best wishes - surely she must be a "Medal of Honour" recipient when this is all over!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Nothing anyone here says will persuade you allow yourself look at this matter objectively the way we look at it..

There, fixed it.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Ahmmm...

[William Walker]

There, fixed it.

You should have fixed your makeup before you went in front of the cameras! 

Nice to see you are still so full of shit!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You should have fixed your makeup before you went in front of the cameras! 

Nice to see you are still so full of shit!

I love you too, William

[William Walker]

Ahmmm...

You are such a day-trader! You understand that the one column stays the same and the other keeps growing, and that this may come back to bite you as surely your "Yawn! Wake me up.." chirp will?

Anyway, I am pleased you seem to be fine, last time we chatted you had moved to Indiana...

[elliot_n]

Ahmmm...

3 days later

[William Walker]

This video shows Bill Maher chatting to Dan Crenshaw, a very impressive young man who more than holds his own in this encounter. In fact, if there were more people like this on both sides of the debate the USA might be a more united nation at a time when it is most needed.

https://youtu.be/RTGBJMDcras

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

This video shows Bill Maher chatting to Dan Crenshaw, a very impressive young man who more than holds his own in this encounter. In fact, if there were more people like this on both sides of the debate the USA might be a more united nation at a time when it is most needed.

https://youtu.be/RTGBJMDcras

Gee, William, we've been telling you the same as the congressman all along... you just don't want to listen.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Earlier today Joe K wrote that he is not at risk.  How do you know  that Joe?  You may be at low risk, but I don't know how you can write that you are not at risk.  You could move about, meet people etc, and get it very mildly or asymptomatically, but could still infect.  If you infected someone who later died, I hope you could live with your conscience. 

The risk of infecting others is one concept people in the UK are mostly fully aware so complying with restrictions.  They are also aware of other consequences, e.g. how it will affect future work patterns  with far less travel to work and less pollution.  Also the demise of cash, as we are advised to use contactless cards instead.  We may even hug people less!

Jonathan

Exactly, I do not understand why people are so selfish. Ok, as an individual, I might not care if I catch the virus and feel like I could go about my business. But with an R0 of 2 or 3, pretty soon I would potentially infect others, and even sooner, hospitals would be beyond breaking point. Simply locking down older people or people at risk (cancer, asthma, diabetes, etc) is no sufficient.

I see this as a phased approach: first you lock down almost everybody (in many countries the essential services and workers have not stopped). Then, after R0 goes below 1, you start to open slowly. Of course, depending on economic differences between countries, the non-essential workers and services are either into lay off or into unemployment - it is then the duty of the government to try and help as much as they can.

[Ray]

Ray, that’s excellent news but surely Sa Kaeo isn’t the whole of Thailand?

Of course it isn't, Manoli. I'm just being positive. 

Nevertheless, Thailand's Covid-19 mortality rate is among lowest in the world.
https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30386297

“There have been 47 deaths from Covid-19 so far from 2,700 accumulated confirmed cases. The mortality rate in Thailand stands at 1.7 per cent, while the average global rate is at six per cent,” he said. “Of the total cases, 1,689 people have recovered while 964 are still under treatment, which makes the domestic recovery rate 62.5 per cent. This statistic points to the efficiency of treatment by Thai medical communities.”

[Paulo Bizarro]

Again, statistics can been deceiving.  Flu vaccines reduce the flu rate by 20% of cases and 10% of deaths (including anti-viral medicine for those who caught it).  Half the cases and death are in NY Metro area, a congested area that has 60 million visitors from around the world annually. The governor and mayor should have shut down the city earlier.     Also, the world had about half a million deaths from flu. I believe that's a much higher number than Covid. 

I'm not saying Covid is not dangerous.  If I believed that I wouldn't be hiding out at home. The questions is did we over-react?  And what do we do going forward?  At this point, even the experts don't know.  When you listen to them, they qualify every statement they make.  Yet people want our officials to have firm answers to these things. That's not going to happen.  Frankly, we're going to muddle along, try this and that to some success and some failure until we get through this.

You keep asking the same stuff over and over. Several of us already explained what is going to happen, based on what is already happening in other countries, recommendations from several health insitutions (WHO, CDC, ECDC, etc, etc). Even Mrs. Merkel, who is a physicist, two days ago explained very clearly how each 0.1 increase in R0 would impact the German health system after reopening. They are now below 1, but German hospitals will crash if it goes up by 0.4. So that is how you do it: you plan according to science and close monitoring.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Then stay inside.  You're doing it already. 

Let me go and enjoy life if you dont want too.

I want to enjoy life, but I don't mind to sacrifice some of my enjoyment to avoid hospitals crashing down. You are selfish - imagine you go out with all your enjoyment, catch the virus, and go to the hospital. You may survive it, as many do; but in the meantime, it may take 3 to 4 weeks for you to recover in the hospital, and you are occupying a bed or ICU unit and staff, robbing an older person from that care.

People thinking like you was it caused the collapse in Spain and Italy. PErhaps you need to watch how doctors had to decide who to live and who to die a few weeks ago.

If only out of respect for health personnel, who work 12 hour shifts or more under extreme conditions, you should be less selfish and think about others. Even if you catch it and can recover from home, you still occupy one nurse that has to call you twice a day to check on you. Just think about others for a while. It is not that tough to stay home for 8 weeks.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I do not understand why people are so selfish....

Where you've been all these years!? Under a rock? People are mostly selfish. Besides, human, legal, and constitutional rights are not waived based on someone's selfishness.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Ahmmm...

You do understand there is a time period assciated with those numbers right? The ones on the right are final, the ones on the left are still growing. Give it some time.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You do understand there is a time period assciated with those numbers right? The ones on the right are final, the ones on the left are still growing. Give it some time.

True. But still a valid comparison.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Release criminals and confine healthy citizens to house arrest. Cool.

Here in Portugal, so far 1,200 "light" prisoners have been released into house arrest. There is a set of critieria, including older people, sick people, prisoners who are within say 2 years of completing their sentence. Not all prisoners were elegible, dependes on the crime and the sentence, of course.

Why? Because prisons are very confined places, where it is not possible to implement social distancing and isolation for infected people. As our Justice Minister said, prisoners are not second class citizens, and their health is also important.

So far myself and millions of others around the world are still healthy - but I could have the virus already without knowing it. I am not in house arrest, my self and millions of others around the world are staying home for a few weeks, it is asacrifice we are willing to make to keep people safe. Even folks like you, who have no respect for others.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... it is a sacrifice we are willing to make to keep people safe. Even folks like you, who have no respect for others.

Thank you for saving my life.

[William Walker]

Gee, William, we've been telling you the same as the congressman all along... you just don't want to listen.

As I said in another post yesterday, everyone has made mis-steps (our government, Australia and others did very well, actually), what is frustrating is that you guys do not acknowledge that simple fact when it comes to Trump (as does he).

Another thing, unfortunately, there can only be one leader at a time - "the decider" if you will - it is only really his decisions that can be judged, everything else is just "ifs" and "buts". What everyone else said or did at the time is of no consequence - only one person gets to make those decisions. That's the President's job. Simple maths really (to quote Mr J Kitchen).